topic Re: crontab question in Operating System - HP-UX

crontab question

thebeatlesguru — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 07:49:59 GMT

user pin write a shell script in /home/pin to check system ,and root do these things as following:
crontab -e
30 08 * * * "su - pin -c /home/pin/shellname"

but cron doesnot work ,there should be some messages to inform me about the check info,but i cannot find these messages.

from book ,i find something about cron:cron only use /usr/bin/sh surrounding and can not use your surrounding. i can understand these words exactly,does it mean that i cannot use a shell script in crontab??

Re: crontab question

Steven Sim Kok Leong — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 07:55:27 GMT

Hi,

Try specifying the full path for su in the crontab ie. /usr/bin/su.

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

Re: crontab question

Peter Kloetgen — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 07:57:29 GMT

Hi Guru,

of course you can use shellscripts with cron. Why the hell should we need cron else? First:

the messages go to the mail account of the user who starts the cronjob. If you want messages to come to another point, you have to redirect them.

cronjob >/dev/pts/0 for example

if you write a shellscript, the first line should be:

# !/usr/bin/desired_shell

to show the script which shell should interpret it

then your cron job shoul work....

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

Re: crontab question

Carlos Fernandez Riera — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 08:02:32 GMT

Change:

30 08 * * * "su - pin -c /home/pin/shellname"

to
30 08 * * * su - pin -c "/home/pin/shellname"

Re: crontab question

Kenny Chau — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 08:03:56 GMT

Maybe you can try this:

30 08 * * * /usr/bin/su - pin -c "/home/pin/shellname"

Hope this helps.
Kenny.

Re: crontab question

Steven Sim Kok Leong — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 08:04:01 GMT

Hi,

The fault lies with your double-quotes. I just tested. With the quotes, the whole string will be taken as a command.

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

Re: crontab question

John Strang — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 08:05:37 GMT

Have you checked the cron log, to ehsure that the job is running? Log is
/var/adm/cron/log

This should show the start & finish times of the cron job.

John

Re: crontab question

thebeatlesguru — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 08:46:19 GMT

i have try all suggestiones,however it still does not work.
following is my date:
# crontab -e
"/var/tmp/aaaa10044"
45 16 * * * usr/bin/su - pin -c "/home/pin/ok"

/var/tmp/aaaa10044" 1 line, 39 characters
warning: commands will be executed using /usr/bin/sh
# crontab -l
45 16 * * * usr/bin/su - pin -c "/home/pin/ok"
# date -u
Wed Feb 20 16:44:12 UTC 2002
# date -u
Wed Feb 20 16:45:20 UTC 2002
# cat log
! *** cron ????????? *** pid = 1088 Tue Feb 19 12:10:13 EAT 2002
> CMD: /home/pin/ok
> root 9364 c Wed Feb 20 22:48:17 EAT 2002
< root 9364 c Wed Feb 20 22:48:17 EAT 2002

after 16:45,i use pin user ,but there is no mail.

Re: crontab question

Peter Kloetgen — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 08:56:40 GMT

Hi Guru,

did you check the first line of script?

# !/path_to_shell_to_interpret_the_script

you do a switchuser to desired user. Do you have an entry in the cron.allow for that user?
A su - changes identity and also the environment to the users environment. Which shell does the user have as entry in the /etc/passwd- file?

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

Re: crontab question

Steven Sim Kok Leong — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 09:02:17 GMT

Hi,

You missed out the /.

Change:

45 16 * * * usr/bin/su - pin -c "/home/pin/ok"

To:

45 16 * * * /usr/bin/su - pin -c "/home/pin/ok"

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

Re: crontab question

thebeatlesguru — Thu, 21 Feb 2002 01:07:45 GMT

look here:

tsrad 30> date
Thu Feb 21 17:10:24 EAT 2002
tsrad 31> date -u
Thu Feb 21 09:10:26 UTC 2002

which time should be used in crontab?

Re: crontab question

A. Clay Stephenson — Thu, 21 Feb 2002 01:13:59 GMT

Hi:

Do this:

cat /etc/TIMEZONE. This will display the default system TZ setting and whatever that is, that is what you use.

Re: crontab question

thebeatlesguru — Thu, 21 Feb 2002 01:55:46 GMT

cat TIMEZONE
TZ=EAT-8
export TZ
tsrad 45> date
Thu Feb 21 17:57:42 EAT 2002
tsrad 46> date -u
Thu Feb 21 09:58:00 UTC 2002

does it mean that i shoule use 09:58:00 ?

Re: crontab question

Deepak Extross — Thu, 21 Feb 2002 03:13:51 GMT

Since you're only testing it out, why not set the job to run every 5 minutes? That way you dont have to worry about your TZ setting.
05 * * * * /usr/bin/su - pin -c "/home/pin/ok"